Silicon Valley Ends it Run with Sixth Season

HBO’s biting tech industry satire Silicon Valley is coming to an end with its sixth season slated to air later this year, according to Variety.

The show follows the borderline absurd struggles and occasional successes of a group of startup employees trying to maneuver the world of tech, secure funding, and beat out rival products from the giant, soulless corporations trying to crush them. It’s aired since April of 2014, and it was conceived by Beavis and Butt-Head creator and King of the Hill co-creator Mike Judge, a former computer programmer who executive produces it alongside Seinfeld alum and Barry co-creator Alec Berg.

Silicon Valley centers on main character Richard Hendricks (Thomas Middleditch), a software engineer who happens to invent a new form of file compression that leads him and his fellow startup employees, Gilfoyle (Martin Starr) and Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani), on a journey toward trying to create a paradigm-shifting new product they describe as a “new internet.” Comedian TJ Miller was also a main cast member as the washed-up entrepreneur Erlich Bachman, until he was written off the show at the end of season 4.

Along the way, Silicon Valley has managed to provide sharp and timely commentary on the real-life Silicon Valley and all of the often ludicrous situations, stereotypes, and trends that come out of the Northern California tech hub. Over the years, however, as tech has ballooned into one of the most powerful industries on the planet and society has taken a more adversarial stance against it, the show’s more lighthearted and satiric approach has struggled to keep up with the darker and impossibly fast-moving reality of the real deal.

At the end of the fifth season, Pied Piper manages to avoid ceding control of its new, unprecedented network to competing Hooli, the show’s comical composite of Facebook and Google, and a double-crossing rival in China. That results in a rare bit of optimistic success for the group as their virtual currency begins taking off and Pied Piper can finally start expanding.

Yet it’ll be interesting to see how it wraps up in the sixth season, which is scheduled to be its shortest ever with just seven episodes. Judge and Berg tend to favor a sitcom-inspired reset approach to storytelling, wherein no matter how far the characters go or how dire the consequences seem, Richard and crew ultimately end up back at square one thanks usually to some unforeseen and miraculous event that avoids disaster, but also wipes away any real progress made. Having to tie it up together neatly, and in so short a time, will inevitably be a challenge. Silicon Valley will be the third high-profile HBO show, after Game of Thrones and Veep, to end this year.

“Silicon Valley has been a career and life highlight for us,” Berg and Judge said in a joint statement given to Variety. “We’ll miss it desperately, but we’ve always let Pied Piper’s journey guide the way, and Season 6 seems to be the fitting conclusion. We are forever indebted to our incredible cast, crew, and partners at HBO. At a certain point, there’s only so much we can do to make the world a better place.”

—
Photo Credit: EQRoy / Shutterstock.com